06/15/2009

Madness Monday: John Ellis of Sandwich, Mass.

Someone recently emailed me regarding any new discoveries on John Ellis of Sandwich, Mass. Alas, no.

There are two major works for this immigrant: "Lt. John and Elizabeth (Freeman) Ellis of Sandwich, Mass." by Lydia B. Brownson and Maclean W. McLean NEHGR 119 (1965):161-173 and "Richard Masterson, John Ellis, Christopher Verrall and the Sandwich Separatists 1603-1620" by Michael R. Paulick, NEHGR 154 (2000):353-369.

A John Ellis married Blandyna Masterson, sister of Richard Masterson at Sandwich, Kent, England in 1594 and had the following children: Christopher (1595), Mary (1596), John (1598, buried 1603), Susana (1600) and Thomas (1608). Both Masterson and Ellis were radical separatists and known friends of Moses Fletcher, James Chilton and other Mayflower passengers from Kent. They were in Leiden, Holland. One Christopher Ellis (assumed to be the man baptized in 1595) was still alive and living in Leiden in 1649 when Bradford wrote him a letter. So we have puritans in Leiden with the name Ellis from a place in England called Sandwich.

In 1643, John Ellis settles in Sandwich, Mass., a small place begun in 1637. He marries by August 1644 when he and his wife are in trouble for having a child too soon after being married. His wife is Elizabeth Freeman, the daughter of Edmund and Bennett (Hodsoll) Freeman all of whom arrived in 1635 and later settled in Sandwich. She was born in 1624. One might assume that John Ellis was born, say 1620.

However in 1658 a John Ellis, Jr. pops into the Sandwich records. This man never marries and dies at the same time as John Ellis, Sr. and the widow Elizabeth (Freeman) Ellis administers both estates. No where is the relationship between the two John Ellis's specified. All we can know is that they were two men of the same name living in the same town. Since Ellis Jr. is in the records as owning land adjacent to John Ellis, Sr., the Jr. of that name must be at least 18 if not 21. Therefore he was born about 1637 and is not the son of Elizabeth (who was but 13 at the time). So, perhaps John Ellis Sr. had a previous wife who died. Now we can say that John Ellis Sr. was born about 1615, based on the birth of son #1. This would make him old enough to be a son of John and Blandyna, probably born in Leiden. However, there's no proof for that. And John Ellis Jr. could be the son of Christopher and a distant relation to the Ellis Sr. It's hard to tell.

Also, both John Ellis fight in King Philip's War and die in early 1677. If born in 1615, John Ellis Sr. was aged 60 when fighting. Possible but unlikely. And John named his children: John (presumably), Elizabeth, Bennett, Mordecai, Deborah, Joel, Matthias, Manoah, Freeman, Gideon, and William. No Blandyna, Richard, or Christopher--names that appear in the Ellis family in Leiden.

So we have a bunch of John Ellises running around in Sandwich, England and Sandwich, Mass. and we don't know how they all fit together. Three countries, two languages, and how many records lost in the last 300 years. Boo.